Continuing the whereabouts round-ups of all recent NBA drafts, this is the fourth instalment of the series. The first three: 1994 1995 1996 As always, if the player in question is still in the NBA, I’ll probably write some rant that in some way relates to them in some way. Don’t think too much of that. They’re not what this post is about. This post is about Chris Crawford’s stables business and the like. Let’s get to it. First round – 1st pick: Tim Duncan (San Antonio) – Tim Duncan is still with the same team that drafted him. Only two players have been with their current teams longer than Duncan has been with the Spurs; Kobe Bryant and Zydrunas Ilgauskas. If e’er there was such a thing as a lifer in the NBA these days, then Tim Duncan is that man. He’s slowing down these days, and the question of how many years he has left is a valid one. But the question of whether he was a power forward or a centre? That was not a valid question. It wasn’t interesting or productive. Let’s pretend it never happened. – 2nd pick: Keith Van Horn (Philadelphia) – Van Horn has not appeared in an NBA game since game five of the 2006 finals. He’s been in the league since then, what with that whole Jason Kidd sign-and-trade thing, but he didn’t play a game amid that semi-comeback and he never really intended to ever embark on. (It was briefly reported that he would work out with the Nets, but that was probably a lie. Remember, this is a man who retired because he wanted to be with his family, not because no one wanted him.) It’s hard to trace what Van Horn is doing now; he was […]
For no reason other than an itching craving to scratch my own Where Are They Now itch – I can’t really start the 2009 series of posts until all leagues are underway, which will be about another six weeks – I have decided to revisit the whereabouts of all players on summer league rosters this past summer. Eagle eyed viewers will have noticed that I’ve already done this once before, in a series of three posts back in September. This list is designed to update that list. Everyone whose circumstances have changed since the last update is listed, as are those few who are still unsigned. Part of me hopes that this list might in some way help those players get some gainful basketball employment. Then the other part of me remembers that the only people who read this website are Chilean teenagers and my uncle Peter. Can’t win them all. Boston Celtics – Coby Karl: Strangely, Karl made the Cavaliers roster this summer. He has racked up three whole minutes on the season, and will probably rack up about seven more before the contract guarantee date gets here. I don’t know why a luxury tax team like Cleveland is so keen on carrying 15 men all the time. But they are, and this is good news for Karl. – Chris Lofton: Lofton was signed with with Caja Laboral in Spain – formerly known as Tau Ceramica – but he left he team last week when his contract expired. The team brought in Sean Singletary instead, seemingly wanting a different kind of player. – Gabe Pruitt: Pruitt went to camp with the Knicks, but was an early cut. He then signed with the D-League and was allocated to the Los Angeles D-Fenders, but he was waived today due to […]
The NBA’s luxury tax first came into existence in 2001, the year in which the league’s new escrow system debuted. The escrow system, in layman’s terms, is a system that withholds a certain amount of player’s salaries and puts it into a separate account until the end of the following season’s moratorium. At that point, when the league’s annual audit is done (that’s what the moratorium is for; calculating the numbers), then if the league-wide player salaries exceed a certain percentage of the league’s overall revenue, that account is divvied up amongst the owners and the players never see it. Similarly, if the league-wide salaries do not exceed that percentage, the players get it back. Essentially, it’s a failsafe measure to prevent players from getting paid too much. Luxury tax is an extension of the escrow system, designed to put more money back into the owner’s pockets if they feel the players are getting too much of it. If that sounds like something that might excite you, a longer description with all the relevant numbers and stuff was written by the seminal Larry Coon, and can be found here: http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q18 As you might presently yourself fully be aware of, the luxury tax is an owner-friendly system also designed to prevent rich teams from simply outspending the rest of the competition. It is calculated by using a projection of the following year’s Basketball Related Income (roughly 61% of it; a more detailed description of the calculation can be found here), and the idea behind it is simple – you can have a payroll of as much as you like, but if you cross that tax threshold, it starts costing you more. It’s designed to be a deterrent, and to emphasise parity amongst the league’s payrolls, thus tying in nicely with David […]
